I have heared many decry the idea propagated by some that the US is a fascist nation in terms of committing acts that are typical of a fascist state. Noting that fascism in and of itself does not necessitate dictatorship, is it possible that the US has fascist tendencies? Is it's foreign policy imperialistic, and if so, is it enought to be fascistic? Is it relative to your own views?

I would be equally interested in arguments that the US is statist, although given the size of business in the US I find that unlikely. For any who might call it socialist please refrain - it isn't, socialist countries have collective enterprise.

I remember looking up "fascism" to figure out exactly what the political ideology is. A big problem with "-ism" words is that they typically do not have an actual definition, but instead have connotations with a specific culture or mindset.

It's an Italian word, derived from "fasces":

"The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break."

Well, this applies to any sort of organization comprising of more than one person. It aptly describes any government.

"Historians, political scientists and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism.[25] Each form of fascism is distinct, leaving many definitions too wide or narrow.[26][27]"

I'm going to guess for the purpose of this thread, you're going to want to use something of a stock definition, so let's try this:

"Fascism advocates a state-controlled and regulated mixed economy; the principal economic goal of fascism is to achieve autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence, through protectionist and interventionist economic policies."

Again this sounds like nearly any government, except for the clause of self-sufficiency. Still, nearly any government would want to be self-sufficient in at least food production and security, for example, so again "fascism" can describe nearly any state.

Most people identify fascism with Hitler and Mussolini, because they waged war against the rest of Europe, and war is evil. IMHO the use of the term "fascism" is nothing more than a gigantic propaganda machine to discredit the losers of the war. To the extent that we label others "fascist" and not ourselves is a form of political doublespeak.

In political science, statism (French: "tatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1][2][3][4] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism.

Again, this describes ANY government. Of course the US is statist. So were Native American tribes and the Persian empire.

Most people decry "statism" thinking that it deals with "too much" state power. I believe in small government, so I guess that means I'm not a "statist" under such a belief structure. However, I am most certainly not an anarchist.

At 8/9/2013 9:41:24 AM, wrichcirw wrote:
If you are civil with me, I will be civil to you. If you decide to bring unreasonable animosity to bear in a reasonable discussion, then what would you expect other than to get flustered?